Yeah, this is what makes approval not really good for normal public elections (for, say, social groups where a clear line of "approval means I commit to participating I the group activity if the chosen activity is one I approved" can be drawn, it's great.)

Basically, approval is a ranked preference ballot method that allows ties and has only two ranks. For public elections, fully-ranked ballot methods (whether allowing ties or forced-preference) are a lot more sensible; they both allow more detail in what is expressed and have more consistency in meaning across ballots in the same election.